Marcos
revolutionizes indigenous rights in northern Mexico

By Brenda Norrell

U.N. Observer
and International Report

October 2006

MAGDALENA, SONORA, Mexico
– Subcomandante Marcos was welcomed as a hero of the indigenous rights movement, as Tohono O’odham, Mayo, Navajo
and other indigenous told of the oppression that threatens their survival.

During the northern Indian
borderlands tour of the Other Campaign, Marcos listened as Tohono O’odham opposed encroachment on their lands in Mexico,
the Bush administration’s planned border wall which is threatening the survival of their ceremonies and a proposed hazardous
waste dump and the cancer it would bring.

O’odham in Mexico
Lt. Gov. Jose Garcia, among the event organizers, said Indigenous People are in need of good leaders and need to follow the
example of the Zapatistas.

“Instead of fighting
with bullets, they are fighting with words,” Garcia told the listening gathering of more than 500 people outdoors at
the Rancho el Penasco on Oct. 21.

Mayo Governor Victoriano Huichileme told of the struggle of his people in Sinoloa on the western coast, of their desperate
need for jobs, education and homes.

O’odham in Mexico told Marcos of the threat they now face, as the government of Mexico plans a hazardous dump
near their ceremonial site at Quitovac, less than 40 miles south of the international border.

Brenda Lee, O’odham
from Quitovac, Mexico,
said the people living closest to the planned hazardous waste dump were never informed of the dump so they could speak out
against it.

“We believe we are
of nature and want to continue to live a natural life. We do not want this contamination,” Lee told Marcos at the gathering.

Mike Flores, Tohono O’odham and member of the International Indian Treaty Council, said the Treaty Council is
an arm of the American Indian Movement and provides Indian people with the opportunity to take their issues to the United
Nations.

Flores, coordinator of the recent Border Summit of the Americas
in the US, said O’odham are opposed
to the border wall and militarization of Tohono O’odham tribal land along the US/Mexico border.

With the rampant spread of Border Patrol agents and National Guardsmen on tribal land in the United States, O’odham rights to practice their religion are being violated
by the oppressive military. The border wall would separate the O’odham communities on both sides of the border and be
a barrier on their traditional ceremonial route.

Flores said American Indians at the northern and southern borders of the United
States are both targeted by the Bush administration. In the north, Mohawks and other tribes
are battling threats to their territories and treaties. The Bush administration is attempting to nullify the Jay Treaty, which
recognizes the rights of First Nations’ passage and commerce at the northern border.

“George Bush wants
to nullify the Jay Treaty, single-handedly, and we can’t let that happen,” said Flores, tribal councilman for
Gu-Vo District of the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona.

Flores urged indigenous people to purge their minds of colonized thinking,
which is not the way of thought of Indigenous Peoples.

Among those traveling with
Marcos was a survivor of the brutal police violence at San Salvador Atenco, where police attacked and beat Zapatistas and
townspeople. One 14-year-old girl was killed. Amnesty International recently released a report on the rape and large-scale
sexual assault of the women carried out by the Mexican police while the women were in custody.

Marcos, now known as Delegate Zero on his listening tour through Mexico,
gathered with northern tribes at the Rancho el Penasco, an ecotourism ranch that promotes biodiversity. During the listening
session, presentations and translations were offered in Spanish, O’odham and English.

Mayos from Sinoloa on the western coast told Marcos that they have little opportunity to receive an education in Mexico, while Navajo from the United States
called for a halt to the corporate machinations that are causing death for indigenous peoples.

O’odham Lt. Gov.
Jose Garcia said, “This gathering brought our people together in unity and gave us the chance for ours voices to be
heard.”

Garcia said the underlying
message of all the indigenous present was that the government of Mexico
has not honored the voices, or recognized the existence and rights of the Indian people of Mexico.

Garcia, who has traveled numerous times to Chiapas since the Zapatistas’ movement
for indigenous rights began, said Mexico never adopted the San Andres Accords
and watered down the Indigenous Rights Bill of Rights in Mexico’s
Congress. He said both reveal that Mexico
continues to ignore and repress Indigenous Peoples

Michelle Cook, Navajo,
said the state and federal governments in the United States
are not listening to Indian people. Cook demanded that corporate profiteering cease and the World Trade Organization and World
Bank “desist fromtheir activities which kill our people.”

Cook thanked Marcos and
the Zapatistas for coming and listening, adding that the Navajos’ own state and federal governments in the United States are not listening.

After listening, Marcos said it was good to be present and listen to the voices of the Indigenous Peoples. Naming the
tribes of this region, Marcos reminded those gathered that there are always repercussions for people speaking out with truth.

Before the evening of listening,
a traditional prayer was led by Salt River Pima. Members of the American Indian Movement, Tohono O’odham, Pima and Hopi/Zia
Pueblo from the United States and O’odham from Mexico, provided security at the entrance and organized patrols.
After consulting with AIM security, local Mexican police forces agreed to remain outside the indigenous AIM security parameters.
Mexican police were surprised with hot coffee before leaving their posts at the highway on Sunday morning.

News reporters and documentary
filmmakers poured into the evening listening session from Sweden, Italy, Japan, China
and the United States, representing a wide range of media, from indymedia
to the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, Ariz.
and an independent Swedish film crew.

While several hundred supporters arrived with Marcos’ delegation in a large bus and several cars, Indigenous
traveled by bus from distant communities, including Mayo from Sinoloa, Yaqui and O’odham from the coast and Tarahumara
from Chihuahua.

Crossing the border to attend, hundreds of people arrived from the United States,
including human rights groups and EZLN members from Oakland, Calif. Among the large delegations were members of “No More Deaths,” in Tucson, Ariz., which maintains water
stations north of the border in an effort to prevent migrant deaths from dehydration in the desert.

When Marcos and the delegation
left on Sunday morning, ecotourism ranch owner Wenceslao Monrroy said Marcos said he had a good rest here, where sheep and
goats often wander through the outdoor crowd.

Already, Monrroy had removed the previous plaque from the door of the private room where Marcos stayed as his guest
at the hostel, also known as the Centro Cultural de Biodiversidad del
Kiche.

“It will now be the ‘Marcos Room,’” he said of the room decorated in the folk art and carvings
distinguishing Mexico for hundreds of
years.

Marcos had planned to be here in June, but the attack by police in Atenco in the south delayed the northern Indian
borderlands tour until October.

During the weekend here, food and support poured in from the Dry River Collective from Tucson; Cooperativa “Just
Coffee,” in Agua Prieta and Sonora; Citizens for Border Solutions in Bisbee, Ariz.; Desarollo de Pueblos Indios Inmigrantes
y Nativos in Sonora.

Earlier in the week, while
meeting with the Kumiai (Kumeyaay) in Baja California, Marcos announced a meeting to bring
together Indigenous Peoples from the north and south continents in the fall of 2007 in northern Mexico.

Marcos arrived at the O’odham gathering on Saturday, immediately after establishing a camp to protect the Cucapa
and Kiliwa near Mexicali, Baja California,
Mexico. Facing extinction because of the loss of fishing rights,
tribal members earlier entered into a “death pact.”

Narco News, providing coverage of the Other Campaign, reports of the new Zapatista camp and encouragement to the people.

“In protest against the forceful dispossession of their lands and the destruction of their culture, the Kiliwas
took a death pact. The women have agreed to stop having children, and the Kiliwas will die with this generation. Marcos, however,
intends to use the power of the Other Campaign to convince them that they are not alone, and that it is not worth it to die
from a death pact when they can die fighting.”

During the last week of October, Marcos plans to meet with Indigenous in Yaqui, Seri, Mayo, Pima, Tarahumara and other
communities in northwestern Mexico.

Indigenous peoples at the Border Summit of the Americas on Tohono
O'odham tribal land opposed the construction of a border wall, which will dissect indigenous communities on ancestral lands
split by the U.S.-Mexico border. They also issued a strong statement against the ongoing militarization of their homelands.

During the Border Summit, held Sept. 29-Oct. 1, organized by Tohono
O'odham Mike Flores and facilitated by the International Indian Treaty Council and the American Indian Movement, indigenous
peoples unanimously opposed the Secure Fence Act, passed by the Senate. The wall will divide the ancestral lands of many Indian
Nations, including the Kumeyaay in California, Cocopah and Tohono O'odham in Arizona, and the Kickapoo in Texas. The wall
is expected to be completed by May 2008.

Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country
for 23 years, working as a staff reporter for Navajo Times and Indian Country Today and as an AP correspondent
during the 18 years she lived on the Navajo Nation. She is currently a freelance writer based in Tucson and a contributor
to the IRC Americas Program, online at
www.americaspolicy.org.